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And that gives people the right to dump the responsibility of explaining how to use their software off on the users? You wouldn't accept that from software you paid for, so why are you willing to accept it from people that write free code?

Who has the responsibility?

If you write code, it is your responsibility to explain how to use it. If you can't explain it then hire a writer that can.

One reason could be that the create-sinister-looking-monster button doesn't exist. You need a tutorial for that.

Yet, surprisingly enough, the manuals that come with commercial artistic programs perform admirably enough at the task so you don't need to look for the "create-monster" button.

...why are you willing to accept it from [software you didn't pay for]?

When slightly rephrased, that sentence makes very little sense...

If you write code, it is your responsibility to explain how to use it. If you can't explain it then hire a writer that can.

Bull. If I write code, it's my responsibility to write it such that I and any other programmers I show the code to understand how the implementation works. Writing code and writing documentation are two different disciplines that are commonly conflated together for convenience of middle management.

Yet, surprisingly enough, the manuals that come with commercial artistic programs perform admirably enough at the task so you don't need to look for the "create-monster" button.

They were also written and edited by professionals that were hired by the company selling software.

Yet, surprisingly enough, the manuals that come with commercial artistic programs perform admirably enough at the task so you don't need to look for the "create-monster" button.

Blender offers both free and commercial documentation], so I don't really get what your problem is. Personally, I've never really felt a lack of documentation for Blender - a confusing GUI, yes, but at least a well-documented one.

Note that this has always been the case in the open-source world: provide the code for free and sell supplemental 700page manuals on dead trees ("the X11 programming manual", "Apache: the definitive guide" etc etc). In some cases, these books may be offered online for free as a service to the community. On others, the community will create fora, wikis and tutorials to complement the official documentation.

Personally, I feel that it is ridiculous to expect coders to become writers who can produce 700pg manuals on demand - and for free! Writing skills take years of dedicated effort to develop, just like programming skills. You cannot simply start typing and expect something useful to appear out of thin air.

And that gives people the right to dump the responsibility of explaining how to use their software off on the users? You wouldn't accept that from software you paid for, so why are you willing to accept it from people that write free code?

Nobody is forcing you to use Free Software. Your bitterness is misplaced. I've contacted the support team for commercial software multiple times concerning issues that should be in their manual, so my expectations are different from yours. At least I can get help faster using a FLOSS forum or IRC, than writing 4 emails with the same question and waiting +1 day before the "support" person at company X knows how to answer me.

If you write code, it is your responsibility to explain how to use it. If you can't explain it then hire a writer that can.

You must be one of those persons that really don't understand open source...

Yet, surprisingly enough, the manuals that come with commercial artistic programs perform admirably enough at the task so you don't need to look for the "create-monster" button.

That's assuming that users RTFM. Those that do will be able to create in Blender/GIMP/etc. as well.